Our district’s teachers, administrators and staff deserve praise for their constant efforts to ensure the learning of every student in our district. But equally deserving recognition and an expression of gratitude are the locally-elected members of our Board of Education.

We all know the normal ones: weight loss, get a better job, try something new, etc. And for most of us, those resolutions are broken usually within six weeks.

Luckily, I’ve been able to keep my personal resolutions of the last two years (I’m showing off, I get it), and so as editor of your weekly paper, I wanted to make some public resolutions for the Era for 2015.

We all know the nature of ripples. We throw a stone and it causes ripples. We say something and it causes ripples. We take action and it causes ripples. We belong to a community or an organization or a workplace (small or large) and our behavior there causes ripples. All those ripples affect other people. All those other people are throwing their stones as well, and their ripples are affecting us.

Another year is coming to a close. It happens so quickly anymore. Year after year passes like an older brother who can’t walk by without frogging your thigh or putting you in a headlock. Time itself isn’t painful, but the swiftness with which it passes leaves me feeling like I just encountered a vicious older sibling. And I’m left wondering, “What did I do to deserve that?”

A man called his parents to wish them a happy New Year and his dad answered the phone. He said, “Hi Dad, what’s your New Year’s resolution?” His Dad answered proudly, “To make your mother as happy as I can all year.” When Mom got on the phone he asked her the same question and she answered, “To see that your dad keeps his New Year’s resolution.”

Through his characters and stories, Mark Twain single-handedly put American literature on the map. Twain, born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 in Florida, Missouri, is best known for two of his classic literary works: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was a powerful observer of human nature and great humorist, which showed in his writings. Twain was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age,” and called “the father of American literature” by William Faulkner.

Famed movie maker D.W. Griffith will turn 140 years old on Jan. 22. To honor this native Oldham Countian, the Oldham County History Center will be showing D.W. Griffith movies and have free cake at the Peyton Samuel Head Family Museum on Saturday, Jan. 24 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.